Nick Kent releases rock memoir, Portsmouth's Joe Stevens was there

Sunday

Sep 19, 2010 at 9:05 AMSep 19, 2010 at 10:27 AM

Rock 'n' roll photographer Joe Stevens' description of Nick Kent is almost as colorful as the man himself. "Flitting his hair like Robert Plant (making the movement with his hand against his own hair). His eyes would flutter. Amazing, imaginative threads — the things he wore ...; the scarves. Gifts from people, thefts from people, thrift shop stuff ...; all topped with a tad of eyeliner. Always a little bit of eyeliner.

Christopher Hislop

"I got it!" exclaimed an ex-girlfriend of 'big-shot' rock photographer Joe Stevens back in the early part of the 1970s. "Let's go to an airline and buy plane tickets...; Let's go to London!"

Stevens, who currently resides in Portsmouth, claims this was at the very beginning of creditors sending out unsolicited credit cards to people — which is how they got Americans hooked on plastic — was poor at the time and this girlfriend of his was feeding him, etc.

"I said, 'sure let's do that,'" Stevens said, breaking into laughter. "So I went to my editor. I was working with the East Village Underground in New York at the time ...; I said, I'll be back in two weeks. I came back 10 years later."

This one-way flight (Stevens would break up with his girlfriend shortly after their arrival in London. She promptly returned to New York), would ultimately lead to the beginning of his relationship with famed rock critic Nick Kent.

Stevens' description of Kent is almost as colorful as the man himself. "Flitting his hair like Robert Plant (making the movement with his hand against his own hair). His eyes would flutter. Amazing, imaginative threads — the things he wore ...; the scarves. Gifts from people, thefts from people, thrift shop stuff ...; all topped with a tad of eyeliner. Always a little bit of eyeliner.

(He was) rail thin, and over 6 feet tall. He had a dope problem, which many thought would destroy him and his talents. We all thought it. I mean we knew a lot of junkies, a lot of dopers, a lot of alcoholics...; we didn't worry about them too much, but we worried a lot about Mr. Kent."

Initially Stevens was taking pictures alongside Charles Shaar Murray, while Kent had photographer Pennie Smith getting the shots for him. There were times however, when Stevens would be on assignment with Kent, shooting photos for him.

Kent outlines this part of his life in his recently released memoir, "Apathy for the Devil," which was released here in the States on Aug. 31, 2010, on Da Capo Press. The UK version of the book, which was released back in March, showcases a cover shot of Kent, taken by Stevens himself.

"We were all starving to death in London," Stevens recalled. "We walked into the NME (New Musical Express) one day, which had a big circulation (it had been around for a couple of decades at this point) — second to Melody Maker. If you managed the Rolling Stones, you could walk in there, throw down 500 pounds, and they'd put the Rolling Stones on the cover. It was one of those operations at the time. They had a couple of good writers, but the rest were all publicist hacks. But we read it. We knew about it. It was part of the bible of things you read if you were in the music business. We walked in there, the four of us, and had a meeting with the editor; a guy named Alan Smith, and took over the (expletive) paper. To the tune of ...; it became the highest circulating pop weekly in the world. Yeah, we took it over."

Kent's tale is a dark and grim recollection of a writer trying to find his voice, all the while trying to gain the confidence of his subjects. Subjects that included some of the biggest and brightest stars in music at the time. Kent was mingling with artists such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Captain Beefheart, the Faces...; the list goes on and on (and let's not forget to point out that he nearly got in a bathroom brawl with Bob Marley and the Wailers). Trying to fit in meant falling into the same pitfalls that some of rock's shining stars fell into during the era, of which several lost their lives. Kent was a junkie. A drug addict. A heavy user who had a deep affinity for heroin, cocaine, and basically anything you put in front of him. It took away the voice that made him a well-respected journalist, and it nearly took away his life as well. Though the book gives a decent account of his struggle with addiction, it doesn't really delve too deeply in the details of such despair.

To an extent, the overall "aura" of the book can best be summed up by a quote he gets out of Elvis Costello during an interview in which Costello claims that "the only motivating points for me writing songs are revenge and guilt." With "Apathy...;" Kent uses the text to call out past nemeses and paints a picture of a time he is seemingly looking to take back in hopes of living them out a tad differently. He doesn't come right out and say this, but at the end of the novel he talks about what it would be like if there were such a thing as a time machine. He claims that if one did exist he'd probably avoid the '70s altogether. He's trying to forget about some of the memories that cloud his thoughts.

For as dark as it is, the book is outwardly entertaining and offers a unique glimpse into the lives and scenes of many a character you otherwise wouldn't have had a way of knowing in the given context in which Kent portrays his subjects. For instance, his relationship with Chrissie Hynde (which began pre-Pretenders) is an interesting subject that arises over and over again throughout the entirety book. He's never able to get her out of his mind. It's as if Kent has some built-up degree of remorse as to what became of the two of them.

Kent also mentions Joe Stevens a couple of times throughout the book, and introduces him as a "New York born, smart-alec." Stevens recalls several of the scenes in the book and wanted to shed further light on them to bring some of it more into focus.

When Kent introduces him in "Apathy...;" he speaks of the time the two of them retreated for a much-needed vacation from Paris, as Kent and Hynde were having relationship woes.

"We got bored (in Paris), it was too hot, so we jumped on a train and headed down to St. Tropez, because I read in the Herald Tribune (the English daily) that Brigitte Bardot had been seen cavorting topless outside her bungalow, and there were people coming up to her offering to give her rubdowns, beatings, (expletives)," Stevens recalled. "We show up, and I proceed to hit on her, and get rebuffed. I mean, that's the talking point of my life! Just amazing! She didn't see that article in the paper, but we did, and we found her. And oh, it was just great."

Stevens also humorously recalls the time the two of them were on assignment with the Rolling Stones, and their task was to get an interview with the elusive Keith Richards.

"Nick takes out a block of hash — nice size," Stevens says of the incident. "He proceeds to roll an English joint, you know, mixed with tobacco, 8 papers, and a cardboard filter. Big thing. Nick lights it, and I run to shut the door and Nick says (Stevens switches to his makeshift British accent), 'no, no, leave it open, Keith will smell it and come in. And sure enough, it worked ...; Keith came in. We didn't get much of an interview out of him, but we got a good laugh out of the fact that he stole our hash. And I mean, what're you gonna do? Call the front desk and say the lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones just stole your hash? We were (screwed)."

The people Kent had the opportunity to meet, spend time with, and write about — and his lifestyle, which in no uncertain terms mirrored that of a rock star, may seem like utopia for many aspiring young writers and artists. While Kent seems to have some regret as to how he treated himself, and some individuals in his wake, he lived the life as only he could, and for his peers, he was as much a part of the music scene as any of the musicians were.

In summation, Stevens puts it best with the following anecdote:

"This one night, we're on the job, we're waiting for the record company to come pick us up to go interview Brian Wilson," Stevens said. "They flew us to LA where we waited six days. Six days in LA! At that point Nick had ripped his leather trousers and had tried to fix them with wire, twine, staples, etc. Ripped them right in the back. So the record company picks us up in a limo, with Nick's trousers in disarray.

"They bring us to Wilson's house and he's just looking at us. Just staring. He thinks Nick is Keith Richards. You know, this British junkie wearing eyeliner. Brian really looks like he's out of his (expletive) mind. He's sitting there eating a salad and smoking a cigarette. He takes a couple hits off the salad, puts the fork back in bowl, takes a puff, and then puts the cigarette out in the salad. Then a couple minutes later he's eating the salad again. His wife is watching us and she's like, 'what's the big (expletive) deal? He does this all the time.' Nick gets up to go look out the window ...; I'm looking at Brian, Brian's looking at Nick, and I can see it in his eyes, he's thinking, 'who's the pop star here? Is it him, or is it me?'"

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